All the World’s a Monster

The smallest of all worlds: pollination networks.

A pollination network may be either 2-mode, describing trophic and reproductive interactions between communities of flowering plants and pollinator species within a well-defined habitat, or 1-mode, describing interactions between either plants or pollinators. In a 1-mode pollinator network, two pollinator species are linked to each other if they both visit the same plant species, and vice versa...

Seeking the Best of All Possible Worlds

We describe a framework for analyzing simulation output in order to find solutions that will work well after implementation. We show how the use of a loss function that incorporates both system mean and system variability can be used to efficiently and effectively carry out system optimization and improvement efforts. For models whose behavior depends on quantitative factors, we illustrate how ...

Brain networks: small-worlds, after all?

Since its introduction, the ‘small-world’ effect has played a central role in network science, particularly in the analysis of the complex networks of the nervous system. From the cellular level to that of interconnected cortical regions, many analyses have revealed small-world properties in the networks of the brain. In this work, we revisit the quantification of small-worldness in neural grap...

The “monster” Study

The diagnosogenic (semantogenic) theory for the onset of stuttering was initially proposed by Wendell Johnson in the early 1940s. It suggested that calling attention to a child’s normal hesitations (repetitions) could precipitate stuttering (Bloodstein, 1987). Some of the evidence that Johnson used to support this theory (e.g., certain tribes of American Indians, in which there appeared to be n...

A Double-Headed Monster